


Through Their Hearts

by methylviolet10b



Series: October Spooktacular Prompt Fics 2020 [5]
Category: Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms, Sherlock Holmes - Arthur Conan Doyle
Genre: Alternate Universe, Character Turned Into Vampire, M/M, Prompt Fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-01
Updated: 2020-11-04
Packaged: 2021-03-09 05:35:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,479
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27319351
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/methylviolet10b/pseuds/methylviolet10b
Summary: Holmes looked almost as he did when lying on our settee in the sitting-room. Written for prompt #5 over on Watson's Woes.
Relationships: Sherlock Holmes/John Watson
Series: October Spooktacular Prompt Fics 2020 [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1958713
Comments: 16
Kudos: 39





	1. Discovery

**Author's Note:**

> Notes: Happy Halloween! I guess every writer goes here eventually. I'm posting this tonight for Halloween; the following chapters will be posted for Dia de los Muertos.
> 
> Prompt: "Rubbish, Watson, rubbish! What have we to do with walking corpses who can only be held in their grave by stakes driven through their hearts? It’s pure lunacy."
> 
> Warnings: Utterly rushed. Full of tropes. Going to be posted in parts. And no beta. You have been warned.

In the light of my lantern, Holmes looked almost as he did when lying on our settee in the sitting-room: hands folded over his chest, dark hair slightly disheveled, eyes closed in thought. But this dank underground chamber was miles away from our cozy home in Baker Street. His normally fastidiously clean suit was covered with tears and stains. His face was pale and drawn far beyond even his usual complexion.

Worst of all, his chest was still. No breath stirred there. The great heart was unmoving and silent.

Grief clogged my throat, but I refused to give into it. Not yet.

“I am so sorry, Holmes.” The words were scarcely more a whisper, but there was no tremor in my voice. “I will avenge you, I swear it.”

My hand was perfectly steady as I placed the wooden stake and raised the mallet, ready to drive the point home.


	2. Discussion

“Watson.”

I opened my eyes. Holmes bent over me, concern warming his grey eyes. I would never have seen it before, but I could not miss it now. “You were dreaming again.”

It was not a question. Holmes knew perfectly well that was the case, and yet he was being kind. “Remembering,” I pointed out.

Holmes took my face between both hands. “John. You thought you were rescuing me from a terrible fate. You had every reason to believe I had become a mockery of everything I had ever been. Had it been so, my spirit would have thanked you even as I crumbled to dust.”

My eyes closed briefly. “Thank God you woke in time.”

My tongue did not wither in my mouth. My throat did not close on the words. I was not blasted for my sincere thankfulness to God. I could still pray, and had done so; still walk into a church. There were so many lies about what I now was, what we both were.

I felt the lightest of touches on my neck. The scar was tender, the wounds from Holmes’ teeth still visible without a shirt collar to conceal them. I felt his regret for the haste that had left such brutal marks as clearly as I felt all his other emotions: his joy that his desperate measures had been successful, his desire, his love and affection. With the blood bond between us, there was no hiding anything anymore.

His lips brushed my scar, and I felt his mouth curve up in a smile as he sensed my thoughts. “No, my dear Watson. There is no hiding anything between us anymore. Including the fact that you are hungry.”

I opened my eyes and exchanged a knowing look with Holmes. “I – yes. Whereas you have as little appetite as ever, it seems.”

“Not for food,” he murmured, and I blushed as I felt all that he did not say. “But let us tend to the most pressing needs first. Lestrade and his men will be raiding the dockside tonight, following the lead I gave him. With any luck, we can hopefully bring an end to the Pitcher gang’s crimes. Lestrade shouldn’t need much help with most of the gang members unless things go badly wrong. The _bokkenrijder_ that is behind the gang, however, is another matter, one that mortal justice cannot handle.”

“But we can,” I said with confidence.

“We can, and we will.” Holmes’ words echoed the promise in his thoughts. “And then, once Lestrade has taken the criminals into custody and we have eaten our fill, we will return here to Baker Street and sate our other appetites.”

I briefly considered a delay as desire rushed through me. But Holmes was right, as usual; my hunger was increasing every moment, and ignoring it could be dangerous for more than just myself. I rose from our bed and went to the wardrobe for a set of clothes suitable for a raid on the docks. 


	3. Declaration

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Holmes *really* wanted his say here. Who am I to argue with the great detective?

_Our mission at the docks was as successful as I planned. The Pitcher gang is smashed. Lestrade has the credit for putting an end to a dangerous smuggling and racketeering organization that was blighting the waterfront. Nearly two dozen criminals are in jail, awaiting trial. I had the pleasure of ending the bokkenrijder’s miserable existence before he could wreak any further evil on society. And Watson tended to two of Lestrade’s men – sewing up a slashed arm on one constable, and bandaging another man’s bloody head wound – just as he has always done with no sign of temptation, no hint that it was any more difficult for him than it has ever been._

_He has only been as we are now for a fortnight. Such restraint, such self-control, is practically unheard-of._

_He is extraordinary and completely blind to his worth._

_He sleeps in my arms after hours spent in lovemaking. Truthfully, my desire for him never fades; I would happily take him in this moment, or have him mount me, or spend together as we thrust through our joint hands. We have spent much of the night in just such activities. But he needs his rest, and I am content to simply lie with him and remember._

_Watson has no idea how close I came to becoming a monster in truth._

Moriarty meant to make me his tool, his creature. As such I would have been a scourge indeed. His mistake was sending his most senior creation after me instead of risking the task himself. Or perhaps he knew, deep down in the black pit he calls a soul, that he would have been no more successful than Colonel Sebastian Moran. I will have to judge that when I finally run him to earth and we meet face-to-face.

Moran ambushed me successfully. No mortal man in ignorance of his kind could have known he was there. He sank his teeth into my shoulder and bled me nearly to death, then force-fed me his own blood and smeared his blood into my wounds. Surviving that traumatic blood loss and subsequent ingestion changed me irrevocably into what I am today. It should have also made Moran my master, and I his fledgling, as they term it.

But vampirism, as I suppose I must call it, is more akin to a disease than magic. It is rather like malaria in that once a person has it, it cannot be cured, only managed. It does not change _who_ a person is but how a body works. An evil man before the disease will be as evil afterwards, but it is not malaria (or vampirism) that makes him that way. A good man can choose to remain so, even when the rest of him changes. And my willpower has always been extraordinarily strong. I felt it when Moran’s mind tried to overwhelm mine. My will overpowered Moran’s instead and I broke from him, rejecting the blood-bond he’d tried to establish between us as I fled.

What followed was a months-long battle between the two of us, him ever hunting me, me ever striving to keep from his clutches as I learned everything I could about my new condition. I learned first-hand how powerful my hunger was, how difficult it was to control, particularly in those first days. It would have been all too easy to become an undiscriminating predator, seizing and feeding on whoever I could catch. But I managed to resist, to retain control, to avoid becoming a murderer. It did grow easier, the hunger less urgent, as time passed. I also quickly learned that I could sense Moran whenever he came near, as he could sense me. In this alone the bond he’d created proved stronger than any willpower, but he could not compel me to be his slave or obey his commands.

My brother Mycroft was invaluable in helping me survive. Apparently he had long known about the more esoteric threats to England, although he never shared such knowledge with me prior to my direct involvement in it. (We will have a conversation about that someday, after the threat of Moriarty is ended at last.) He provided me the information I needed without coming under suspicion from Moriarty and his ilk. He also managed to convince Watson that I gone on a mission for Queen and country at his request, and that I would return as soon as I was able. He knew the last part was true. As an expression of faith in my abilities, I have rarely had so high and aspirational a compliment.

In the meantime he also sealed Baker Street against anyone not human, even myself, which I appreciated more than he could possibly know even as it mystified me as to how it was accomplished.

In the end I managed to destroy Moran, but doing so nearly killed me in return; the very weak bond between us still recoiled upon me with devastating force when he perished. I managed to drag myself to one of my bolt-holes before collapsing into a death-like sleep.

Which is the state Watson found me in some days later. I still don’t know, and will probably never know, precisely how many days it was. Nor do I know how one of Moriarty’s agents managed to get close enough to him to mesmerize him, for Watson himself has no conscious memory of it. He only knows that he learned somehow that vampires really existed, and that I had been turned into a monster out of one of his yellow-backed stories. Mesmerism can make someone see what is not there, or not see something that is there, but it cannot make someone act against their nature. Watson’s determination to take responsibility for ending the horror he believed I had become was brave, noble, self-sacrificing, and an ultimate gesture of his respect and his feelings for me – exactly in keeping with who he is.

I have known for some time that Moriarty, while coldly logical in most of his actions, sometimes seems to have a flair for the dramatic, or possibly has motivations I don’t yet understand. Why he had a minion mesmerize Watson instead of simply killing him is one of those inexplicable moves. True enough, had I killed Watson in self-defense or in hunger, I might very well have gone mad with rage and grief. Had Watson succeeded in killing me, he too would have suffered terribly even if he had never subsequently discovered the truth. But Watson’s death at the hands of Moriarty would have been unbearable to me even without my direct involvement.

What Moriarty’s purpose was, what his end game might have been, we might never know. As it was, Watson did manage to track me down somehow, and it very nearly turned into a tragedy. After days lying injured and insensible, when I did wake, it was with an almost uncontrollable hunger as well as a sense of immediate danger.

I could have killed him. Had it been anyone else, I _would_ have killed him. I was so starved I could smell nothing but a source of living blood, think of nothing but the hunger burning within. But even in my feral state I recognized the almost-silent, pained huff when I seized his wrist and pinned him against my chest.

“Watson?” I blinked the confused fog from my brain and forced down the hunger. “What are you _doing_ here?” I released his wrist but did not push him away.

The look of surprise on Watson’s face was so comical I would have laughed if not for the grave danger of the situation. “Holmes?” Any impulse to laugh was swiftly quashed by the wave of relief, and release from grief, that washed over my friend’s countenance. “Oh thank God. I thought – I was told – but never mind. I can see now it was absurd and that you are not dead. My dear fellow, I cannot tell you how relieved I am to find you alive. But Holmes, what are _you_ doing here, and in such a state? Are you hurt?”

He sat up and reached for my wrist to take my pulse, a doctor’s automatic habit. I froze, and he frowned. “Holmes,” he said calmly, so calmly. “I cannot seem to find a pulse.”

That moment was so dangerous, but I could not think of another way. “Wait for a moment, Watson. You’ll feel it.”

Several seconds passed, and then Watson’s eyebrows rose. “I felt something, perhaps a single beat. But now I have lost it again.”

“No, your fingers are telling you the truth. My heart beats very infrequently now – perhaps as many as four times a minute, and that only when I am exerting myself.” Or am in the grips of great excitement or terror as I am now, I could have added, but refrained. “There are yogis in India who are rumored to be able to do this, I believe, but I haven’t been able to find any reliable scientific study of them.”

Watson’s brows drew down in a thunderous frown. “Holmes. What has happened to you?”

I told him everything. I could not help myself. It was either reveal all, win Watson’s understanding, or… I refused to contemplate anything other than success. I explained everything I had learned about vampirism, my theories that it was a blood-borne disease such as malaria, my speculations and researches about the altered chemistry of my metabolism and its unusual dietary requirements, the trauma of Moran’s ambush and the long battle we had waged. Through it all, Watson listened with his full attention, asking the occasional question but otherwise remaining quiet. His eyes never left my face.

I spoke for a long time, but eventually even I ran out of words. At the end, Watson nodded. “Well. That is a great deal to absorb, Holmes, but two things are very clear. You are still yourself, and you are famished almost to the point of fainting.” A small smile quirked his moustache. “Which is very like you as well.” He started removing his jacket.

“What are you doing?” It was an absurdly inane question, but it was all my brain could formulate.

Watson’s return glance was equal parts unimpressed and determined. “Removing my coat so I can unfasten a cufflink and roll up a sleeve,” he said even as he did so. “You must eat, Holmes. We cannot continue this conversation if you are unconscious, and you have already made it plain that there is no danger to me or anyone you imbibe from.” He extended his bare forearm to me. “So take what you need, my dear fellow, and afterwards we will go out and get you a sandwich since you’ve said you still require more ordinary sustenance as well.”

_My hold tightens involuntarily on my Watson as I remember his incredible offer and the taste that followed. He does not stir; he is held too deeply in the strange sleeplike state we fall into when we rest. We move very little, compared to human sleep, and we breathe so lightly it is very easy to mistake it for unconsciousness or death. I press a kiss to his temple and run one hand through his hair. He does not move, does not sigh, but I can feel he senses my closeness, my affection, and returns it a hundred times over._

I know now that emotion changes the taste of blood. Perhaps it is a chemical marker, a reflection of other bodily systems; perhaps it is something else. Certainly others of our kind might relish the bitter tang of terror or the sharp bite of rage. These are not to my liking. Until that moment, I had satisfied myself with the more subtle tastes of somnolence and intoxication, as well as the blankness of the unconscious. I had never tasted courage, willingness, or affection until Watson’s blood touched my tongue.

It was instantly addicting. My hunger roared, wild for more, more, all of it, every drop. I knew the difference between sufficiency, satiety, and gluttony from my experience with other addictions. That knowledge did not make my task simpler, but knowing Watson’s life and health depended on my actions certainly did. I fought the hunger down, restricting myself to the bare minimum required to meet my need. I stopped as soon as I felt the edge of my hunger blunted and greater vitality return to my limbs.

I forced myself to look at Watson, meet his gaze, though I was half-afraid of what I might find there: revulsion, disgust, fear. I should have known better. Watson’s face registered a mild curiosity as he first examined, then bound up, the wound I had made in his forearm. “I’ve certainly had worse blood-lettings,” he remarked. “You’ve taken less than what one of my teachers did when demonstrating the art.” He looked me over thoroughly, and then nodded. “You look remarkably better. I’m glad of it. Now let’s find you a decent suit in the wardrobe I know you must keep here, and then go find that sandwich.”

He made it sound as simple and straightforward a matter as a daily shave. I knew better – he could not hide it from me – but if I had not already been as deeply in love with John Watson as it is possible for a man to be, that moment would have won me utterly. I did not declare myself then, any more than I had the uncountable other times when Watson’s sterling qualities threatened to overwhelm me. Even more than before, I had nothing to offer him that he wanted, or so I believed. I had all the reasons in the world to hide my one-sided adoration, plus two new complications: the continued threat of Moriarty and his gang, and the all too real possibility that I might unconsciously use my still imperfectly-controlled mesmeric powers to influence Watson.

So we went on much as we had before, at least for a time. I returned to Baker Street after sending a quick message to Mycroft to remove whatever he’d done to keep me away, which he somehow managed to do before we finished our leisurely meal. I admit I lingered over it as I don’t often do, both to give Mycroft time, and to luxuriate in Watson’s company. I had missed him keenly. He too seemed glad to see me and have me back at Baker Street.

For his part Watson appeared to adjust to my new existence remarkably quickly. As a doctor, he was as curious about my changed metabolism, unbelievably rapid healing, and peculiar new abilities and limitations as I was myself. He willingly assisted me in my experiments to better understand my new self, only baulking if he judged the risk to my health or safety too extreme. He was equally matter-of-fact about offering me his own blood whenever I needed it, referring to it as a necessary dietary supplement with the same expression he always used when trying to get me to eat properly.

I could not resist his offer, any more than I could have refused it without offending him on some level. But neither was I willing to chance any possible injury to his health. So I sipped delicately from his elbow or forearm no more often than once a week. It was the only additional intimacy between us. I dared no more.

We might have gone on in that fashion for years, but Fate, in the person of Moriarty, intervened once again. He sent a man only known as the Colonel against us. Some claimed he was Moriarty’s brother; others swore he had been the terror of India at one point in his career. I doubted the truth of any of these stories, but one rumor was very accurate: the man was an absolutely crack shot as befitted Moriarty’s most ruthless assassin. Even the best shot can miss, however, particularly when he is aiming at a false target – and he has no second chance at his quarry when he is crushed by an enraged vampire a moment after the trigger was pulled. Thus far my counter-plan worked perfectly.

A soft cry reached my ears. A normal man never could have heard it, but my altered senses detected it as easily as if it had been uttered just a few feet away. I left the Colonel’s body lying in the empty house across from our rooms and rushed back to 221 at my top speed. There I found Mrs Hudson in our sitting-room, crouched next to Watson, who sprawled against the wall a few feet from the shattered dummy that had been the Colonel’s target.

My senses were overwhelmed by the smell of blood. Watson’s blood.

A bullet to the shoulder had brought him to me. Now a ricocheted bullet to his leg threatened to take him away.

“Mr Holmes!” Mrs Hudson’s face was streaked with tears; her hands were crimson where she pressed them against Watson’s thigh. “I was in the hall and heard the window break. I came in and see, the poor Doctor - ”

There was no time. My eyes blazed into hers with all the mesmeric power I could summon. “Watson will be fine, Mrs Hudson. See, it’s just a graze. But you’ve had a terrible shock. You should go lie down, and there’s no need to worry about us until tomorrow. We’ll see to our own supper, and to our own breakfast too.”

The dear lady blinked, nodded, and rose, tears turning to serenity. “Oh, you’re right; the bleeding has stopped. Thank goodness! I believe I will go wash my hands and have a lie-down.”

Watson’s eyes were already glassy with shock and blood loss, but he managed to focus on me. “Nothing to be done,” he gasped. “It struck the artery. Holmes…”

I seized his face between both my hands. I could feel his heart faltering in his chest. “John! Do you trust me?”

His clouded gaze sharpened briefly. “Always.”

I plunged my fangs into his neck.

I had no idea what I was doing. I only half-remembered what Moran had done to me. But desperation and instinct helped bridge the gaps in my knowledge. I swallowed down his blood, sour with pain and dusty with his approaching death, and then ripped open my lips with my teeth. I pressed the bloody wreck of my mouth to his own and forced his jaws open.

_drink_

I felt his tongue move. I felt his throat swallow.

I tore away the ruined cloth from his leg and covered the pulsing wound with feverish, bloody kisses, forcing my blood into the injured flesh.

_live_

The taste of dust grew stronger. His body shuddered. His eyes rolled back in his head.

_John!_

And then he was there, in my mind. My will swept out and tried to blanket him before I realized what was happening. His will blocked mine just as instinctively. His will has always been a match for my own. Had I wanted a fledgling, I would have failed. But I did not want a slave. I wanted my friend, my beloved, my partner. My Watson. My John.

Perhaps I could have hidden these thoughts from him if I had known what I was doing. Certainly I had not seen anything in Moran’s mind beyond his desire to enslave me. Whatever the cause, I could hide nothing from Watson in that moment. Nor could he hide anything from me.

So I saw what he had never spoken, never hinted at. And he saw the same in me. The same unspoken desire, the same love and devotion. His will matched my own, not greater, but not lesser. He was entirely himself.

_My dear. Dearest._

_Beloved. I have always loved you._

The shudders stopped. Watson took one last gasping breath.

He opened his eyes.

“Watson.” I seized him in my arms. Pressed together, I could feel as well as hear his heart slow until its cadence matched my own.

“Holmes.” Watson’s voice was slightly hoarse. “I feel…so strange. And my leg hurts like the very devil.”

I glanced down at it. The wound had stopped bleeding and was visibly closing, healing as I watched, but not nearly as swiftly as my own injuries did. I felt fear rise again, and with it questions: did he need more blood? Had I failed?

It was only when I saw the red staining his collar that I realized what I’d forgotten. Quickly I nipped my already-healed lip and brushed the blood against the still-streaming bite I’d left on Watson’s throat. It took a few beats of my heart, but then it too stopped bleeding.

“Rest now,” I whispered against his throat. “Heal. And in a few hours, I will take you on your first hunt.”

Impossibly, Watson laughed even through his exhaustion and lingering pain. “In a few hours you and I will attempt to get all of my blood out of the carpet, or we will have a great deal of explaining to do to Mrs Hudson. You can’t keep her mesmerized forever. Not to mention what your clients might think.”

That is what he _said_ , but I felt all the emotions behind it, the love, care, concern, and wonder most of all. Wonder at his new condition, and wondering, dizzying joy at the love he never suspected was returned in all ways.

In the end we did both: I took Watson on his first hunt, and we spent some hours scrubbing away every trace of his blood from our sitting-room. Then, and only then, did we finally come together.

_Watson stirs in my arms. I can feel the sleepy echo of his contentment at my nearness. Desire spirals upwards in a warm flood, buoyed by love._

_Had I not been forced to share my contagion with Watson in order to save his life, we might never have found our way to each other. He never would have said anything, and I know I would not have either. But our bond gave us those words we could not say, and allowed us to know emotions that transcend speech._

_He limps now when he is tired. The leg wound from the Colonel’s bullet healed. There is no scar, but he still feels the pain sometimes, a ghost of the trauma that led to his change. When that happens he uses the cane he has always carried for its original purpose. The habitual presence of that cane helped immeasurably in another respect. A little mesmerism, a little conversation, and everyone now believes that Watson’s limp is simply an old war wound that acts up on occasion. No one remembers that Watson did not have a limp until that fatal day._

_His throat scar will never fully fade. I was too slow to tend it. Watson cherishes it as a permanent mark of love’s discovery._

_He is a romantic, but he is not wrong._

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted October 31, 2020.


End file.
